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Quobuz subscription

Hi I've recently joined Quobuz to try-out few tracks. 

The ones released on 70's and 80's Japanese jazz vinyls sound really muffled. Thought they would sound better vs. YouTube streaming channel of Terminal Passage that actually mostly plays its digitized vinyl collection, but quality is too far away from even YouTube.

I checked the quality and all of them are CD 44.1kHz, but the sound quality is so far away from CD 44.1kHz.

So what's there to check? Is only major-popular recording industry albums sound good there.

I checked that via my Mytek DAC and via my cheap DAC and both DACs show nearly-same differences on the playback vs. YouTube.

So far Tidal actually gets my best grading on items outside of RR hall of fame or outside of recording industry standards.

It really seems to me that Quobuz is over-advertised.

 

czarivey
mofojo
2,204 posts
 

I have Amazon HD and Spotify. Was listening in my car on my Focal Utopia system yesterday. It sounded awful on Amazon! I then played the same track on Spotify and it was literally night and day better! Strange. I tried Quobuz a few years ago but found the selection kind of limited. May have to give it another go. 

jaymark's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
jaymark
491 posts
 

I have Qobuz.  I like the sound quality on my reference system.  I suspect the artists make good money off streaming as there is a lot more streaming volume per artist than sales of the same physical media.

mofojo
2,204 posts
 

Did another try today Amazon HD vs Spotify. No contest Spotify was louder by far (maybe not good thing?) but mid bass was so much better and sounded so much more correct. 

mapman's avatar
mapman
21,924 posts
 

You can’t really draw a conclusion regarding how two services sound based on a tiny sample.  I mean you can of course but it does not hold much water.  Source material used for streaming varies case by case.  Try  a sound meter on them.  I find hi res internet stations often sound dull compared to lower resolution but louder  alternatives.  Loudness war is a real thing and not always for the worse subjectively. 

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